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I just found out I have an appointment with a woman obstetrician/gynecologist for May 10th. The doctor who set up the appointment for me thought that an obstetrician might be a good doctor to help me, as the tearing is similar to tearing from birthing. I can’t find much about her online, but she teaches at one of the local universities so she is experienced and connected. I expected to have to wait several months for an appointment, so this is really good.

When I got off the phone with the nurse I had a good hard cry and then looked her up, and then had a cry again. It’s relief and fear together. What if she doesn’t examine me very thoroughly and says nothing can be done? I deserve to know exactly the extent of my injuries, and what I might do to improve their impact on my sex life.

I have to remember to confirm the appointment a week before or I will lose it. I tend to get spacey about things with emotional energy attached to them so I’ve already set lots of reminders and will tell my wife and friends to remind me to confirm too.

I’m also thinking of who to bring with me to the appointment. Last time I brought my wife, but she doesn’t do survivor support well. She loves me, but she’s not great at demonstrating empathy in the way I need it when I’m upset. I think I need a survivor with me. My first thought was one of my longer term male friends, who has survived a lot himself and is good at being supportive, or maybe my other survivor friend who is a lawyer and good at collecting specific information. I need someone who will be compassionate, get what a big deal this is, help me remember to ask everything I want to ask, and offer moral support. Perhaps I’ll talk it over with both of them and see which of them is up for it. The guy gets a bit spacey himself so may not be the best choice if I need someone to be my rock. The woman is a bit less amazonian than I am about her survivor stuff so may not be as unflinching as I need. My wife was there when I first saw the scars so she has the history. But she hates talking about our sex life, and I’ll have to do that to really get the information I need. It will come to me who is best.

Note: This is probably triggering.It’s medical studies talking about vulva injuries in kids and how they heal. Read at your own risk. Here is a nice picture of a bunny to give you the opportunity to not read what is below if you don’t want to.

I am doing some research to help find an appropriate specialist to treat my vulvar injuries. I have found some disturbing things out.

Apparently injuries to the vulva bleed a lot, and you can die. Some sources recommended examining injured children under anasthesia, because it’s really common for there be other internal injuries (tearing into the urethra or anus). In places in the world where young women and children are commonly raped and mutilated genitally, things like ‘fistulas’ are common, which is where the wall between the colon and the vagina has a hole in it, and fecal matter gets into the vagina. My heart goes out to those women. I sure hope I have nothing like that. Surely I would have noticed?

And generally, tears in the vulva inflicted as children usually heal well and quickly without scarring, unless they are particularly deep and severe. Lucky me. I have two really long, very evident scars. So survivors who know you were injured, don’t feel invalidated if you haven’t got scars. Most women don’t. Reading this, I think that it’s is likely that there were other less severe tears that healed up without leaving a lot of signs. Also, the scars from tearing during rape, in adults anyhow, tend to rip backward toward the anus (if that’s how I understand posterior in this context), which is the opposite of what happened to me. Here’s the reference on that:

Here’s an excerpt from one of the few references I found that wasn’t about tearing during birthing. “Healing of Nonhymenal Genital Injuries in Prepubertal and Adolescent Girls: A Descriptive Study”:

Superficial vestibular lacerations seemed healed in 2 days, whereas deep perineal lacerations required up to 20 days. The appearance of new blood vessel formation was detected only in prepubertal girls, whereas scar tissue formation occurred only after a deep laceration in both groups. [emphasis added]

I’ve looked at some diagrams and there doesn’t seem to be a name for the part of my anatomy that got torn, basically between the vestibule, through the urethra to the clitoris. Although if the diagram of the child sized vulva is accurate, that space was a lot shorter when I was a child.

This is the diagram of a kids vulva. The most commonly injured places are all toward the anus from the vulva.This, likewise is a drawing of an adult woman’s vulva showing the names for all the parts and which ones usually get injured in sexual assault. Now you know what all your lady bits are are called.

Probably the most disturbing thing though is that looking up ‘reconstructive gynecology’ brings up listings for ‘vaginal rejuvenation’ surgery, where women get their labia cosmetically altered to make them prettier, and get their vagina ‘tightened up’. That is the most misogynist thing I’ve heard of in a long time. I need reconstructive surgery from a horrible injury. Y’all with intact vaginae and vulvae should be grateful, and not damage them with unnecessary surgery to make your vagina/vulva lookbetter. Outrageous. Seriously. Sheesh!